Reasons for customizing packaged enterprise systems: a case study on an enterprise asset management system

Figures & data

Table 1. The list of interviewees and their organization’s business domain.

Organization	Business Domain	Est.	Interviewee code	Country	Role
Org A	Power grid operation (Annual Revenue 2020: 682.5 million EUR)	1996	I1	Finland	System Specialist
			I2	Finland	Project Manager
			I3	Finland	Consultant
Org B	Power plant (Annual Revenue 2020: 115 million EUR)	1998	I4	Finland	Business Representative
			I5	Finland	Consultant
Org C	Traffic authority (Annual Revenue 2020: 809 million EUR)	2010	I6	Sweden	Consultant
			I7	Sweden	Business Representative
Org D	Mining (Annual Revenue 2020: 758.6 million EUR)	2006	I8	Finland	Business Representative
			I9	Finland	Business Representative
			I10	Finland	Product Owner
Org E	Power generation (Annual Revenue 2020: 115.5 million EUR)	1977	I11	Finland and Sweden	Business Representative
Org F	Mining (Annual Revenue 2020: 307.3 million EUR)	1920	I12	Finland	Maximo Administrator
Org G	Power plant building and operation (Annual Revenue 2020: 1.7 billion EUR)	1834	I13	Finland	Maintenance Manager
Org H	Manufacturing (Annual Revenue 2020: 508.9 million EUR)	1988	I14	Finland	Business Representative
Org I	Hospital and municipality services (Annual Revenue 2020: 415.99 million EUR)	1863	I15	Sweden	Business Representative
Org J	Construction (Annual Revenue 2020: 109.5 million EUR)	1988	I16	Sweden	Business Representative

Table 2. An example of the analysis.

Customization reason (Examples from the data) (Reason, as quoted by the interviewee)	Categorizationreason (open coding) (Key point from the reason for customization)	Category (selective coding) (Grouping customization reasons into a broader category)
Org A: Our goal was to change the process and do less customization, but there was too much resistance from the business people.	Resistance to change	Business process: Business representatives had different reasons that justified their current ways of working. Changing the business processes was not worth it.
Org B: The IT department wanted to keep the customizations low and change the business processes. However, the business	Cost and risks outweigh the benefits of change
units hesitated because of the risks and training needs.
Org E: The business units wanted to explore new ways of working.	Resistance to change
Org H: A legacy system had been used for more than 20 years. There was thus a comfort zone around the way of working. This was perceived as the only right way of working.	Resistance to change
Org A: Our processes are developed and operated locally. They do not follow any global best practice or the “way of working” recommendation. No system in the market would fulfil our needs. We went for a product that has higher potential for customization.	Localization	Product features: A PES is built on an understanding of an industry’s best practices. These practices are not valid in every context. This may result from the vendor’s geographical origin, which influences the supported processes, local regulations, and exceptional business needs, among other reasons. The product lacked many local features that had to be customized.
Org E: The Product lacked essential functionality. A new application and some features were added on top of out-of-the- box application. These include, for example, a customized permits- management application for regulatory needs.	Regulatory needs
Org G: The product lacked some features that are relevant to our business processes. The vendor had no plan to implement those in the near future. We were forced to customize.	Slowenhancement implementation

Table 3. Summary of customization reasons.

Category	Customization Reasons
Business Process	Resistance to change
	Brainstorming the process and too many disciplines
	Costs and risks outweigh the benefits of change
	Missing the big picture
	Business expansion
Product Features	Missing features
	Localization
	Licensing model issues
	Slow enhancement implementation
	Too easy to customize
	Regulatory needs
Project Management	Ineffective or absent change management
	Creeping requirements
	Lack of management support and vision
	Lack of resource availability for project work
	Requirement-related clarity issue
	Lack of IT development skills
	Time constraint
Stakeholder Relationship	Communication gap between customers and consultants
	Bad design decisions

Figure 1. Reasons for EAM customization in relation to a PES project’s phases.